


The Hero Overheard

by Ray_Writes



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s01e22 Darkness on the Edge of Town, Episode: s01e23 Sacrifice, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 07:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26469175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: Laurel wakes to Oliver on the phone, saying things that hardly make sense, and their futures are changed.
Relationships: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen
Comments: 30
Kudos: 64





	The Hero Overheard

**Author's Note:**

> This was an idea I had and wrote up in the last two days. I don't really have much else to say about it than that, other than a thanks as usual to the Lauriver discord for their feedback and for helping me with a few details here and there. Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

Laurel felt indescribably good. Not just because of the sex, though that certainly hadn’t hurt.

But just… her and Ollie. Figuring things out. Trying again, despite all the odds. It was such a relief not having to hide behind increasingly flimsy excuses for why she didn’t still have feelings for him. So affirming, too, to know that some of his actions this past year hadn’t been in her head. That he still loved her, too.

She wanted to talk in the morning, of course. As good as their lovemaking had felt, it didn’t solve all their problems or answer some of the lingering questions she still had. What was that ‘something’ he said had kept pulling him away, and what made him so sure it was at and end?

For right now, though, she was content to bask in the sheer contentment of being with the one person who could make her heart feel whole again. Curled up against Ollie’s side, one hand rest on his solidly muscled chest, she thought she could stay that way forever.

They fell asleep like that, and Laurel didn’t know what time it was when she felt herself awaken; only that it was still dark. Laurel shut her eyes, willing sleep to return. Why was she awake?

The answer presented itself when she felt Ollie’s lips press to her forehead as he slowly shifted her off of him and sat up on the side of her bed. His phone was buzzing with a call. Maybe his mother was wondering where he was.

“What is it?”

Laurel frowned a little in her half-awake state. It didn’t really sound like Oliver was talking to one of his family. Maybe a worker at the club? It wasn’t really her business, and she could barely hear the low murmur of whoever’s voice on the other end anyway, so she was ready to drop back off to sleep.

Until Oliver spoke again, at least. “Good. Coordinate an attack.”

Laurel’s eyes shot open. Coordinate a _what_?

“You take the device, I'll take Merlyn. Got a location?”

Merlyn? Oliver couldn’t mean — no, he would have said Tommy if he meant Tommy. He wasn’t going out on some crazy limb attacking his ‘competition’ or something stupid like that. Laurel had chosen him anyway. But unease with that decision coiled in her gut as she found herself now wondering why Oliver was saying he was going to _attack_ Tommy’s father. And what device?

Laurel strained her ears to hear the reply, and she could tell now that it was Mr. Diggle speaking. _“Yeah. According to Felicity's trojan, Merlyn's logged on to his computer from his office.”_

“I'm on my way.” He stood, and in the dark of her room, his broad back cut an impressive figure. It occurred to her his silhouette was a familiar one, but her mind was too stuck on everything she had just heard to pay that much attention.

Was he really just going to go to Mr. Merlyn’s office to _attack_ him? For what? The thought seemed unthinkable, and Laurel didn’t know what to do. How would he react if she spoke up now and told him what she’d heard? She knew she hadn’t been meant to. But if she said nothing and let him go, what did that say about her? What if something happened to Mr. Merlyn? Did that make her complicit?

Except that would assume Oliver was being literal with his use of the word attack. Maybe he hadn’t been. People made ‘plans of attack’ all the time that weren’t about any sort of physical confrontation. Her tired mind could easily be jumping to conclusions, no matter how grimly serious his tone had been when he had said it. No matter that Laurel didn’t know of any reason why Oliver would need to confront Tommy’s father at all, unless it was about his terrible parenting. If so, she could tell him already it would fall on deaf ears.

Laurel lay still as Oliver finished dressing. She heard him come around to her side of the bed and tried not to tense. She hadn’t decided what she was going to say yet.

But Oliver merely leaned over and pressed another kiss to the crown of her head before straightening up and leaving the bedroom. It was only once she heard her front door open and close that Laurel sat up, hugging her knees to her chest in worry.

Had she done the right thing feigning sleep and letting him go? Should she have demanded answers right away? Laurel didn’t want to mess up whatever this was they had found together all over again with accusations, but she had been lenient with Oliver’s excuses in the past, and look where that had gotten them.

The thing was, Laurel couldn’t shake how Oliver had sounded both unlike himself and yet still familiar, like even this different side to him was known to her somehow. She had seen glimpses of it the last several months, true; the way he had noticed the Triad’s incoming attack and kept them constantly moving to evade harm, how he had placed himself between her and Garfield Lynns at the firefighter benefit and remained calm even as the flames had grown around them and the surety with which he had gone to check on the situation at the manor after the power had gone out the night they had stayed there with Taylor. Far from scaring her, it had had the opposite effect; as much as she hated what he had been through in his time away, she knew it would have changed him and didn’t want him to feel forced to hide it out of fear of her or anyone else’s reaction. She didn’t know why he feared what she’d think. In those moments, she had been afraid at times, but not of him. She felt safe when Ollie was there, much the same as she felt whenever the Hood made one of his appearances.

That was the thing she had been grappling with all these months, Laurel could admit privately. The number of times Oliver reminded her of the Hood, even in spite of the denial he had given her. What did it mean? Could she have been right all those months ago, and if so, why had he lied? 

There were any number of reasons, she supposed, trying to push aside the hurt she felt at the idea of Oliver shutting her out like that. The less people who knew about a crime, the less likely the perpetrator was to be caught. He might have even wanted to afford her plausible deniability. Maybe he simply thought she wouldn’t approve; Laurel remembered how the Hood hadn’t been sure how she felt about him when she’d called for help on Danny’s case. Then there was the fact that the Hood had ostensibly ended their working partnership after everything with Vanch since he’d been scared for her.

Laurel rose from the bed, starting to pace. The more she thought about it, the more everything Oliver and the Hood had done this past year made sense of they were one and the same person? How had the Hood known to be watching her apartment the night that hit man had come to try and kill Taylor? Because Ollie had been at the police station and knew she was taking Taylor home with her temporarily. Where had the Hood come from when Lynns had attacked the benefit? Oliver hadn’t gotten lost in the fire; he had gone to confront Lynns instead. His gear could have been somewhere in his club. In fact, if she had heard Mr. Diggle on the phone right, the young woman she had met there the other morning was working with Oliver on this, so one of the back rooms or basements was probably his base.

Did _Tommy_ know? That brought Laurel up short. Tommy had made his dislike of the Hood fairly clear after her encounter with SWAT on the rooftop, and she hadn’t gotten the impression that was some kind of act he was pulling to shield Oliver from suspicion. If he knew what Oliver was doing, Laurel wasn’t actually sure if Tommy would even approve.

Maybe he had found out. Maybe that was the real reason he had quit the club job and suddenly made the decision to back out of their relationship. Laurel didn’t regret that he had anymore; she was ready to stop being stubborn about her feelings for Oliver, and a part of her was glad Tommy had decided their relationship wasn’t going to work out on his own. But she at least could better understand why everything had happened if this was the case, which she was increasingly certain it was.

She had felt something deep in her bones each time she and the Hood had interacted, some kind of pull to him she hadn’t been able to explain. Him being Oliver was the only explanation that made sense to her now.

If it was true, and Oliver really was the vigilante, that would only make sense as to the ‘something’ that kept pulling him away. But if he thought that was at an end, did that mean he was done being the Hood?

She couldn’t imagine the Hood going away now. There was still so much wrong with their city, so much injustice still happening. They had only just started to scratch the surface of the layers of corruption at work. If nothing else, she needed to ask him if that was what he was intending. That was almost more important to her than anything she had overheard on the phone.

She still had no idea what this had to do with Mr. Merlyn or the device Oliver had mentioned. He was in the Hood’s usual demographic of targets, but until tonight Laurel had had no reason to think he would be targeted. The Hood had even saved Mr. Merlyn’s life just two months ago. That was something she needed to know more about, too.

The chances of her getting back to sleep were slim to none, so Laurel instead went to shower and change. She wanted to be ready to talk whenever Oliver returned. If he even returned here, she thought to herself. What if he got so caught up in whatever was going on with Mr. Merlyn that it pulled him away from her again?

Well, no more of that. No matter if Oliver was done being the Hood or not, she didn’t want to keep putting their relationship on hold or yo-yoing back and forth. She didn’t want to be the safe harbor he kept getting pulled away from with the tides of circumstance. She was jumping into the waters headfirst, swimming out to meet him.

Laurel spent the rest of that night outlining all the points she would make to Oliver, both about why she could be trusted with his secret and precisely why the Hood was needed and that their relationship could thrive _because_ of their mutual dedication to the city. This was all done in her head given she knew better than to put her suspicions as to his vigilante activities in writing. She did not fall back asleep; for one thing, her mind was too active to rest, and for another she was afraid that upon waking she might convince herself everything she had heard had all been some bizarre dream.

By the time light was just starting to streak across the sky, it was clear Oliver wasn’t intending to return to her apartment. Laurel was going to have to seek him out before she went to work. She made herself coffee to face her sleep-deprived day ahead, and once she’d finished that she grabbed her keys and headed down to her car to make the drive out to the Queen manor. If Oliver wasn’t there, she’d try his club after.

One way or another, the two of them were going to face the truth of things together.

\---

Despite the fact he had spent a portion of the night unconscious, Oliver already felt bone-tired as he left his mother’s office. His brief captivity had not been kind to his arms and torso, something that had likely been calculated on Merlyn’s part given the other man’s own expertise in archery.

With his mother proving uncooperative in helping narrow down the location of the device and Tommy too drunk and angry of him to provide an inside track to Malcolm either, he was going to have to rely on his own knowledge of the man who had been his father’s best friend in life. His thoughts were derailed, however, as he came to the top of he stairs and found Laurel waiting below in the foyer.

“Hi.”

“Hey.” Oliver made his way down the steps to get to her. Seeing her now helped ease some of the worry and anger pressing in from all around, no matter how tight a schedule he was on.

“Is there somewhere we can talk?” Laurel asked.

Oliver winced. “I was on my way out, actually. Something came up at the club. That’s why I had to leave.”

Laurel nodded. “I noticed.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Oliver said. He had been so hopeful last night that they would have the device secured and Merlyn rounded up for the cops before dawn, that he could have woken Laurel with a kiss and a fresh start on their lives together. Things hadn’t worked out that way.

“Sorry about leaving or about lying just now about what you left for?” Laurel asked, and he froze. “I woke up last night, Ollie. I heard some of what you and Mr. Diggle were saying on the phone. It didn’t make a lot of sense at first, but it’s starting to.”

He very nearly swayed on his feet. Laurel had heard? Lord, what had he even said last night? He knew they had discussed Merlyn and the device, but the specifics were failing him as his mind filled with a panicky static. Oliver glanced back up the stairs and towards the kitchen door, ushering Laurel into the empty sitting room with one hand at her arm. “I can explain.”

“Just let me ask this one more time,” she said. “And please, Ollie, no lies. Are you the Hood?”

He swallowed. “Yes.”

Laurel blew out a breath. “Okay.”

Oliver blinked. _Okay?_ He had just admitted to being a killer, a criminal, a man with violence in his past and present, and Laurel was _okay_ with that?

“Why would you need to go after Tommy’s father if you helped save him when he was attacked at his award ceremony?” She asked next.

He couldn’t think for a moment, didn’t understand what was happening. He had expected demands for an explanation of how and why he had become this, what he’d been thinking, how she didn’t know who he was anymore. 

Except she _did_ know, didn’t she? Laurel had always seen the potential for better in him, the possibility that he could be more than a rich man’s son. What the island had scraped away of him were all the things Laurel had always seen past and loved him for.

She was still waiting on his answer, so he hurriedly began, “Things changed. I learned the truth about who Merlyn really is — the copycat archer.”

Laurel gasped. “The man who beat you at Christmas?”

He nodded grimly. “He has a plan to exact his revenge on the Glades for Rebecca’s death twenty years ago. He’s going to destroy it with a device that triggers an earthquake. He coerced my mother into having it built at Unidac Industries, and according to her, he plans to set it off tonight.”

Laurel’s mouth was hanging open, her eyes wide with horror. “Oh God. Ollie, what do we do? People need to know, we have to—”

He placed his hands on her shoulders to anchor her, for Laurel looked about ready to run outside and start warning anyone she came across. “I already told your father. Hopefully, he can spur the SCPD into action. I have a team that’s helping me to locate the bomb, and we stole the schematics so there should be a way to defuse it. Merlyn will have to be confronted as well. But Laurel, I _need_ you to stay out of the Glades tonight.” His mind would be on her and her safety if she was there, and he knew he needed his focus to be on his inevitable clash with Merlyn.

“I have work today.”

“So call in sick—”

“And I _need_ to be there now,” she continued over him. “CNRI’s files aren’t digitized. If the worst happens, if this device goes off, thousands of people are going to lose the only hope they have of getting justice. Unless I get those files out of there before anything happens to them.”

“Laurel…” He wanted to protest, to tell her that it was far too dangerous and that it was better for them to cut their losses. But if he were in her place, what would he be doing? How could he expect her to be anything else than herself?

“Get it done as quickly as you can, and then get out of there.”

Laurel nodded, and Oliver leaned in to capture her lips with his. It was a searing kiss, the new understanding between them serving to make the bond between them all the more intense. He never wanted to leave her, and yet they each had their duty to the city.

He broke off the kiss and backed up a step, but Laurel followed him with a hand placed to his cheek.

“Ollie. Beat him this time.”

“I will,” he promised. Merlyn has made a mistake when he had revealed the secret to the edge he had had during their previous fights; Oliver knew exactly what he was fighting for now.

They both went outside, Oliver to his bike and Laurel to her car. And as they each pulled down the drive, he hoped with all his soul that he would fulfill the promises he had made to all of his loved ones. That he would save the city that his father had failed, the city that he and Laurel both loved.

\---

Laurel blew the speed limit the entire way to CNRI, pulling sharply into the first spot near the building that she could find. She charged up the steps two at a time and marched straight for her boss’ office. She almost didn’t hear Jo’s call.

“Hey, first day back to the grind. Laurel, you okay?”

“Just a second.” Laurel rapped on the doorframe and stepped inside. “Eric, we have a problem.”

“More threats from billionaires?” Eric sighed and looked up from his computer. “You could play a little nicer with them, Laurel.”

She shook her head. “It’s not that. I received a tip-off from, from my father,” she decided midway through the sentence. Oliver had said her dad had been informed, and Eric was more likely to take action if he thought this was a police matter. “There’s a bomb threat in the Glades, and if it goes off we’re going to lose everything we have here.”

“Holy—” Joanna cut herself off before what was likely a swear left her lips. She’d followed to stand behind Laurel and listen in.

Her boss, for his part, was now frantically checking his email and picking up his phone as if to listen for messages. “What? Why wasn’t I contacted?”

“The police don’t know exactly where it is, so I don’t think they want a panic. The threat was slated for tonight. We need to get working on moving things into cars and taking them out of the neighborhood.”

“I- I guess we— Laurel, you’re _sure_?”

“Absolutely.”

He stood and wandered out onto the main floor with her and Joanna, looking more than a little lost as he cleared his throat. “Uh, everybody? Everybody listen up.”

The room slowly fell silent as people stopped talking to each other or put their calls on hold.

“We’ve been informed of a- a bomb threat,” Eric said, his voice cracking on the word ‘bomb’. “And we need to relocate our files and evacuate as soon as we can.”

“And tell your clients — any of them who live in the Glades — to evacuate as well,” Laurel added, stepping forward as the thought came to her. “I’ll be calling anyone who’s number I still have.”

“Shouldn’t we be leaving _now_?” Anastasia demanded.

“The bomb threat was for nighttime,” Joanna answered. “We’ve got plenty of daylight, and I’m not filling out all this paperwork again when we can save it now.”

Laurel gave her friend a bracing smile in gratitude. “Let’s get to work, people. The faster the better.”

They set up an assembly line of sorts, everyone responsible for a stretch of floor while others took boxes down the steps and passed them off to others waiting outside to load up their cars. In between packing files into boxes, Laurel made her calls.

“Hello, Mr. Declan? This is Laurel Lance from CNRI.”

_“Oh, Laurel. How are you?”_

“I could be better. Listen, I’ve been informed of a bomb threat that could potentially affect a wide area in the Glades. I’m recommending that you and your daughter evacuate from the neighborhood for somewhere else in the city.”

_“Oh, God. Oh. Well- well where should we go?”_

“Do you know anyone downtown?”

_“No. No, I don’t have many friends left after — I have no idea where we can go.”_

Laurel couldn’t help but worry that this would be a common problem for her clients. Their whole lives were in the Glades. “Head to the Rockets stadium. As soon as I’m done evacuating our files at the office, I’ll meet you there. Bring any important papers or valuables with you, just in case.” 

_“Okay, but Laurel — I’m sorry, but are you_ sure _this is necessary? I’m not seeing anything on the news about this.”_

She debated in her mind a moment, then dropped her voice to avoid being overheard as she admitted, “The news won’t be saying anything, at least not yet. I got this information directly from the Hood, Mr. Declan.”

There was a beat of silence. _“I see. Then I better start packing. Thank you.”_

When she hung up, Laurel raised her voice to get the attention of the room once more. “Okay, people, for any of your clients who are asking where to go, direct them to the Rockets stadium.” It was large and had a retractable roof, perfect for a gathering of those who might find themselves displaced. Hadn’t there been stories like that out of New Orleans after Katrina? When Laurel received various nods, she barked, “Okay, let’s keep it moving!”

They had nearly gotten everything packed up when someone turned on the television to a press conference Mrs. Queen appeared to be giving live. _“If you reside in the Glades, you need to get out now. Your lives and the lives of your children depend on it. Please.”_

In some ways she felt better hearing this, the confirmation that this was real. Laurel drew on that and used it to fuel the calm drive she had entered since leaving Oliver’s home. She had to do her part just as he was doing his.

“It’s about to get crazy out there,” Joanna murmured.

“Good thing we’re about ready to go.” Laurel heaved a box into her arms and headed for the stairs. Her car was very nearly full.

“That’s everything!” She heard Anastasia cry with relief. “Can we go?”

“Yes, everyone go home to your families,” Eric said.

“I’m actually going to the Rockets stadium to organize things there,” Laurel said. “Anyone who can volunteer to help there is welcome.”

“You’ve got me,” Joanna promised. Here and there, some of her coworkers raised their hands.

“Okay. When we get into downtown, I’m going to stop at the first corner store and buy supplies. Water bottles, phone charges, stuff like that. Any of you who can do the same at other stores, it’s going to go a long way. We may not be able to take the fight to Merlyn, but we can save our city.”

The store seemed surprised to even see her and the others come in as he had been glued to the television playing coverage about the mass exodus from the Glades. The nightly anchor’s voice echoed through the near-empty space as she marched down the aisle grabbing whatever she could think of that people might need.

_“We had observed an usual level of traffic already leaving the Glades late this morning and into the afternoon, but the cars are now bumper to bumper as there is a mass exodus from the neighborhood Malcolm Merlyn has allegedly targeted for demolition.”_

Where was Tommy? The thought came to her so suddenly it surprised her? What did he have to be thinking right now? She’d forgotten to ask Oliver if he knew his identity, but now his own father had been exposed. If Laurel had the time, she’d try to call him, but others needed her more.

She, Joanna and the few coworkers of theirs who had volunteered headed up to the counter, and she slammed the 40-pack of water bottles down on the counter. “Put this all on my card.” Her credit was going to hate her later, but she was grateful to each and every one of these people who had chosen to follow her.

There was a large crowd gathered outside the Rockets stadium by the time they arrived, security barring anyone from entering as people yelled at the stadium’s manager and he yelled back.

“I don’t know who you people talked to, but nothing’s been cleared with us!”

“Hey!” Laurel made her way to the front, her own clients seeming to recognize her and making room. She drew right up to the manager and leveled her best glare. “These people could be losing their homes and everything they own any minute now, and they need somewhere to stay. Do you really want to be known as the man who turned them away, because I can make that happen for you.” She stepped closer and added in a lower voice, “I wonder what the Hood would think of that?”

She enjoyed the way he gulped more than she should have. That fact that she knew she could back up her threat now was even better, even if she knew the worst Oliver would do was tie the man up and demand he make some sort of restitution.

“Excuse me! Excuse me,” a woman shouted. The sound of a car door slamming also drew everyone’s attention as Laurel turned to watch Mrs. Bowen of all people get let out of a Bentley by her driver. Laurel couldn’t think of why the woman would be here for a moment — then it hit her. The Bowens owned the Rockets. How many times had she listened to Oliver rant and rave about how _his team_ was owned by _Carter Bowen_ and how Carter never _failed_ to bring it up in a discussion about sports, how his dad should just buy them out?

In the present, Mrs. Bowen came through the crowd and stood beside her stadium’s manager. “The Starling Rockets are proud to be part of this city and its community, and we would never turn away our fans or family no matter their need. George, let them in.”

The man backed down, chagrined in the face of his boss’ announcement, and soon they were heading down to the field to set up. Laurel did her best to organize the passing out of supplies as residents of the Glades found spaces to settle in for the night. She felt some of her spirits raise as she watched people sharing blankets or phones amongst friends and neighbors. With any luck, they would all be going home after tonight, but to see people earnestly pull together in a tragedy like this was something else to witness.

The jumbo cams had been hooked up to the news somehow and showed footage of the ongoing evacuation from the Glades along with some evidence of riots and looting. Laurel knew such varied reactions were only to be expected. How were they as a city supposed to grapple with what they had learned in the coming days. Who could have imagined this only a day ago?

The one question in Laurel’s mind was, where was Merlyn? Had he been caught? Had Ollie gotten to him? Was Ollie safe, was he alive?

Her phone rang, and Laurel saw her dad’s name on the caller ID. “Don’t worry, dad, I got out of the Glades.”

 _“I’ll believe it when I see it, kiddo,”_ was his reply. She couldn’t help noticing he sounded out of breath. _“If you’re not out yet, you need to get out now. Right now, Laurel.”_

She turned away from everyone, walking out of hearing range. “Daddy, you're scaring me.”

_“Sorry, but I'm not... I'm not going to make it.”_

“What?” Laurel asked, her stomach lurching with dread. “ _What_?”

 _“You have to promise me one thing, Laurel. You're not going to die along with me. You have to go on with your life.”_ His grew difficult to understand as he choked up on the other end of the line. _“After your sister died, I pushed people away, I became like a ghost. I didn't think I had the right to live when my baby girl didn't. Promise me you're not going to make the same mistakes as I did.”_

“Where are you?” She would go back and find him, get him out, too. She couldn’t lose him like this; they were the only family the other had.

_“Promise me, Laurel. Promise me.”_

“I promise.”

_“I love you, honey, now and forever.”_

“I love you.” When there was no response, she realized the line had disconnected. “Dad!”

Laurel shoved her phone back in her pocket and got out her keys, hurrying back towards Joanna. “Jo, I have to leave, so I need you to take over.”

“Wait, what? What’s going on?”

“I have to go find my dad.”

“Whoa, whoa, Laurel, there’s no finding anyone out there right now. Things are too crazy.”

There was a great cry that rose up from the crowd as on the large screens, buildings started to tremble and collapse. Jo latched onto Laurel’s arm in a grip that would probably bruise with a horrified gasp, and Laurel felt tears form in her eyes as the first structures came down.

 _No._ It had happened. How could it have happened? What had become of her father? Of Ollie?

Laurel ripped out of Joanna’s grasp and ran from the stadium. She needed to get to her loved ones, now.

\---

Oliver could feel nothing but numb shock as he watched the smoke ride in the distance. Merlyn was dead behind him, yet he had somehow won the day anyway. At least in some small part.

He had failed his father’s mission. More importantly, he had failed his city. How many had fallen or been crushed? How many would be lost tonight because he hadn’t been able to outthink his enemy? Why did things always end this way? He had hoped to leave most of that senseless destruction behind him, yet he had only brought it home, it felt like. Now the people he loved suffered for it instead of the scattered allies he had made over the years away.

“Laurel.” Had she gotten everything out of CNRI like she’d wanted? Was she safe? What must she be thinking watching all the destruction and knowing he had been unable to stop it.

 _“CNRI set up a shelter in the Rockets stadium about an hour ago,”_ Felicity managed through her tears. _“She should be okay, Oliver.”_

Some of the tension in him released, though he could hardly feel relief as the horrible sight of half the Glades falling in on itself was still before him.

“We gotta get you back, treat that,” Digg said beside him, pulling one of Oliver’s arms around his shoulders and helping him down from the roof. Yet as they reached the penthouse office, Oliver’s quick casement of the room showed him something was missing. Or rather, someone.

“Where’s Tommy?”

“I don’t know, man. Maybe he fled.”

But out of fear or anger? What would Tommy say once he learned his father’s fate? The more he thought of the inevitable fallout from tonight’s events, the worse the numbness seemed to set in, the only way he could hope to cope with it.

Somehow, some way, John got them back to the base. Oliver couldn’t hope to even remember the details. Once there, his friend helped strip him of the top half of his suit to treat the wound to his chest. Felicity watched silently with red-rimmed eyes.

They all jumped at a loud banging on the door to the upstairs, and his heart skipped a beat when he heard Laurel’s voice call out, “Ollie? Hello? Someone!”

“Um, I’ll- I’ll get that,” Felicity said, rising shakily and jogging up the steps. She opened the door and let Laurel down past her. Laurel looked around the base once before her eyes settled on him, and she almost seemed to fly down the stairs to his side.

“What happened?”

“There was a second device. Merlyn had two commissioned, but we only knew about and disarmed the one,” he explained with his eyes cast towards the ground. “Everything past Wells Street is gone. I’m sorry.” That was her job, most likely. That was so many people’s jobs and homes and lives that he hadn’t protected.

“I meant what happened to you.” Her fingertips brushed his skin just above the gauze Digg had applied to his wound. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ve survived worse,” he answered gruffly.

“Ollie, this wasn’t your fault,” Laurel said. He looked up as she turned to face John and Felicity as well. “None of you can be blamed for this. You did everything you could, more than the police were even doing. Merlyn just… if he’s been planning this for twenty years, he had the upper hand. What you managed in less than a year is a testament to what you all can do, not a fault.”

Felicity sniffled once but smiled briefly, and John murmured a quiet, “Thank you.”

Oliver knew to some extent that she was right about the odds they had been facing, and that things could have been far worse had they not done all they could to destroy the one device. But he still felt the weight of responsibility on him for the suffering people were still enduring out there. Nothing could change that there were people who had died tonight that by all rights would still be here had he succeeded.

The upstairs door flew open and a disheveled Tommy rushed into and caught himself on the railing. “I tried checking CNRI, but it’s down. I can’t find — Laurel.”

“Tommy,” Laurel said, sharing a tense look with Oliver. “Are you okay? Your father…”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Tommy asked, his tone flat in a way that made it impossible to guess what he was thinking.

Oliver swallowed and nodded once. 

He watched as his friend rubbed both hands over his face and took a shuddering breath. “I just don’t understand how he could — how he was this ill. I’ll _never_ understand it.”

“Tommy,” Laurel said, stepping forward when Oliver could not.

But Tommy raised a hand. “I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t be here.” He turned and left the base without another word.

Laurel’s shoulders slumped, but she returned to Oliver’s side and took one of his hands in hers. “You did what you had to.”

“It wasn’t enough.”

She squeezed his hand tighter. “It was the best that you knew how.” She held his gaze with hers for a long moment, and he could see how she was willing him to believe her. Oliver bowed his head, conceding her point for now.

There was still more to do tonight. “I have to find Thea. I don’t even know where she ended up tonight between mom’s press conference and everything else.”

“I have to try and find my father. He- he told me he wasn’t going to make it,” Laurel admitted softly.

“Detective Lance is alive,” Felicity interrupted. “He called you when the device’s anti-tampering mechanism went into effect, but we stopped it. If it hadn’t been for him, tonight would be so much worse.”

Laurel smiled in both pride and relief. “Then I need to find him, too.”

Oliver got dressed, and everyone ventured out to the world outside their quiet bubble. He saw Laurel and her father reunited at the police’s impromptu triage center, but he also saw people lying on the ground being treated for injuries that reminded him of the worst times away. He watched Felicity get into her car and drive away for home, passing wailing children on the sidewalk. He exchanged a final nod with John before the other man went to seek out his family, even while families around them had been torn apart.

By the time he made it to the manor, Oliver could barely keep moving one foot in front of the other. And he was nearly knocked off his feet when Thea flew into his arms. “Where have you been?”

“Organizing stuff. At the club,” he lied mechanically, trying not to wince at the way her tight hold made his wound throb worse with pain. “Are you okay?”

“I went down to try and get Roy out, but he- he wouldn’t. Said he had to help other people first. They took mom,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

“I know.”

They sat on the couch in the sitting room, Thea crying into his good shoulder as the news report played late into the night. At some point, his sister fell asleep, and he carried her up to her room. Then he came back down to keep up his watch.

_“Estimates put the death toll at 250, with that number expected to go up.”_

He could only think bitterly on how just the previous night, he had thought himself victorious over Merlyn, had thought he was going to end this unthinkable tragedy before it could ever become a reality. But reality was never so kind.

Anything he attempted to fix ended up worse for it. Tommy had told him only the previous morning that he wished Oliver had died on the island, and right now Oliver agreed with him. He should never have escaped that place. It was where he belonged.

It was not quite dawn when he finished packing a bag and drove into downtown, a note and a photo tucked into his breast pocket. This time, he would be taking no ties to his old life with him. He didn’t deserve those things any more.

Yet Oliver had barely taken two steps away from Laurel’s apartment door when he heard the latch and locks being undone. Laurel’s voice stilled him. “Ollie?”

He had been counting on her to be asleep. Apparently he needed to take better care that she really was in the future, except his future wasn’t one with her. “Uh, hey.”

She held up the note, clearly having not read it. “What’s this?”

“I…”

But Laurel quickly scanned the words, a frown growing on her face the further her eyes drifted down the page. Those same eyes raised to meet his, and the breath rushed out of him at the blazing look in them. Laurel took two steps, shoved the paper and the photo into his chest and clenched his shirt in her fist, dragging him down to take his lips in a kiss that was as angry as it was passionate, more about the bite of her teeth than the softness of her lips.

When she released him, they both stood there panting, and it was all Oliver could do to catch the crumpled paper before it could fall, his thumbs smoothing out the corners of her photo out of habit.

“I didn’t ask for this back.”

Oliver nodded, not able to find his voice just yet.

That hard look in her eyes faded a little, and she reached out again, this time taking his hand to pull him inside her apartment. He hadn’t meant to come in at all, but his want to be welcomed was more powerful than his shame.

Laurel sat them down on the couch and said, “I know this is hard, and it isn’t what you wanted. But Ollie, I know you’re strong enough to face this. After everything you did to get back home, you know you don’t want to leave us.”

“I don’t, but I — how do I go on when I let everyone down? Everything I did as the Hood was building towards last night, and when it counted, I failed. My mission died last night along with nearly 300 people.”

She shook her head. “Your mission saved lives, Ollie. The people I talked to last night, the people I called to get them to evacuate, they believed me because I told them it was coming from _you_. The people of this city trust you, and it saved them.”

Upon hearing this, Oliver felt the lump that had been in his throat last night rise up, and his eyes fill with tears that he couldn’t fight back down. Laurel pulled him into a hug where he could rest his face in the crook of her shoulder and neck, finally allowing himself to release the potent mix of anguish, defeat and unbelievable _hope_ that swirled within him. He cried until he had nothing left, until his breathing slowed and he came back to himself with the feel of her hands stroking his back and the salt of her own tears dampening his hair.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion.

“Always.” Laurel looked over at the time display in her television. “I was getting ready to head back to the stadium to help the other volunteers. I just came back here to get a few hours’ sleep.”

He nodded. “I’m not sure I’d be all that welcome there.”

But Laurel pulled him up by both hands. “Actually, helping the people of this city is exactly where you need to be. Maybe no one will ever know everything you’ve done for Starling, but at the very least they should know you are not your parents, Oliver. You’re someone who cares about more than himself.”

“And if someone reacts badly?” He couldn’t help asking, even as he followed her back out to the elevator.

“Then I will be there to put a stop to it before things get out of hand.” In the elevator, Laurel took a moment to pull a tissue out of her purse and wipe under her eyes, checking her reflection in the panel of buttons. “Let somebody protect you for a change.”

Impossibly, he felt just the barest smile rise on his lips. “You’ve done that more times than you know.” Just now, even, she had saved him from his worst habit of fleeing when everything became too much.

Laurel turned to him and he did likewise, meeting each other for a far slower, sweeter kiss that soothes some of the pain they both were doing all they could to hold at bay. They couldn’t let it overwhelm them, not when there was so much that needed doing.

With Laurel at his side, he thought he might just be able to see his way through that darkness that had fallen over their home. Without her overhearing him on the phone the previous night, without him acting on his feelings that same evening, it might not have ended up this way. Despite all the rest, how lucky that still made him.


End file.
